From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

As I return from sabbatical, one of the things I’m most excited about is this coming year’s renewed adult formation opportunities. They rely heavily on the experience and expertise of our laity and will add depth and richness to our exploration of faith and life in Christ together.

A friend of mine wrote about his encounter with poetry as a non-poet:

“The Anglican tradition in poetry was a ready favorite—Spenser, Donne, Herbert, Wordsworth, Eliot, Betjeman. There one could find epic adventure, metaphysical wit, Christological exposition, nature’s beauty, history’s hinges, and still yet room for the droll and jejune.

On recurring occasions from high school through my college years, I would be handed a draft of obscurantist, perversely personal, and unmusical verse; the would-be poets crossed their arms and tapped their feet, waiting for my praise and thorough explication.”

My friend wrote of being perplexed, bored, annoyed, and more by some of the poetry he read. But he wrote of also being transfixed, transformed, restored, and renewed by it.

Anglicanism, with its reliance on the language of the Book of Common Prayer and, for most of its history, the King James Bible, is rich with poetic imagination. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that much of what we now consider the modern English canon of verse finds its root in the cadences and depth of those two Anglican source documents.

If we’re not defined by an inflexible doctrinal purity or a reflexive obedience to received authority, then it might be said that Anglicans are better thought of as a people of poetry. It has forms but is inherently flexible. It strives for the transcendent but articulates that longing in the language of the world’s lived experience. It is both the work of history but also dreams of what is to come. It is informed by the past but relies on each new reader to discover meaning for a new generation. 

Anglicanism is, notoriously, as hard to pin down as poetry. William F. Buckley once said that the thing about the Episcopal Church is that neither the Pope nor Mao Zedong could be certain they weren’t Episcopalians! Our nature is to have a comfort with ambiguity even as we live with the certainty of our charge to seek and serve Christ in all persons. 

So we’re going to approach the coming year in an innovative way. We’ll explore the broad theme of the Beauty of Holiness through a different discipline and perspective every month. Art may be the best vehicle for not just understanding our Anglican tradition but for exploring the ways God uses beauty of all sorts to ground, transport, transform, and awaken us in many different ways.

In September, Sunday morning forums will begin on September 10 and be held 11:30am-12:00pm. Beginning on October 1, when the 9:00am and 11:15am services resume, forums will be held 10:30am-11:00am.

Wednesday Mosaic formation hours will run 6:30pm-7:30pm, and begin on September 13.

The plan—when the calendar permits—is to have the Sunday forum’s theme reflected in the Wednesday Mosaic formation hour. This will allow people who are not able to attend the Sunday forum to still participate in the offering on Wednesday and vice versa.

Because of the limited time on Sunday, the forum will be offered as a lecture.The expanded formation hour on Wednesdays will be a more expanded, interactive exploration of the same topic.

I’ll write more soon about my sabbatical. Suffice it to say that I’m deeply grateful to our lay leaders and staff for the time I’ve had, and I’m delighted to return with such a rich way of going deeper in our faith together!

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert